10 March 2016 will see the eleventh World Kidney Day take place. This year’s theme is ‘Kidney Disease & Children. Act Early to Prevent It!’ The day will focus on improving education, facilitating early detection and ensuring that throughout an individual’s life – starting at birth – everyone is well equipped to combat and manage kidney disease.

From 4-6 February 2016, EFCCA (the European Crohn´s and Ulcerative Colitis Associations) together with GAfPA (Global Alliance for Patient Access), organised an advocacy workshop on patient safety in Barcelona that gathered over 60 patient representatives from a wide range of immune modulate disease groups and other organizations .

There are two months to go until the 7th Global Patients Congress ! We know that our members are working hard and are incredibly busy but please don’t forget to register now if you intend to join us. We are pulling together final preparations and do not want you to miss out.

The World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) presents Tools For Change, a three-part webinar series aimed at educating and up skilling viewers on various aspects of advocacy and the tools needed to effectively lobby for change.

World Cancer Day unites the world’s population in the fight against cancer. It aims to save millions of preventable deaths each year by raising awareness and educating about the disease, pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action.

On 29 February 2016, people living with or affected by a rare disease, patient organizations, politicians, carers, medical professionals, researchers and industry will come together to celebrate the ninth annual Rare Disease Day.

Technological advances in scientific research have placed us in a universe of knowledge that today allows us to speak of more than 8,000 rare diseases (EPOF) that affect 8% of the world population, as determined by WHO. However, governments are not following at the same pace, causing a gap between knowledge of treatment and access to treatment.

They say that in the past, governments avoided international scrutiny of their national health policies by evoking sovereignty as a defence. Things have changed over the last fifteen years as global health governance starts taking root.